Combining Actual and Contingent Behavior Data to Model Farmer Adoption of Water Quality Protection Practices

Using farmer responses to contingent valuation method (CVM) survey data in combination with actual market data from four watershed regions in the United States, this study estimates the minimum incentive payments a farmer would accept in order to adopt more environmentally friendly "best management practices" (BMPs). Combining actual market data with the CVM data adds information to the analysis, thereby most likely increasing the reliability of the results compared to analyzing the contingent behavior survey response data only. Given the decision to adopt, the article also presents a pooled model for the number of acres enrolled in the BMPs as a function of the incentive payments. Adoption rates predicted with the combined data model are significantly higher over a wide range of offers than those predicted using the traditional discrete choice analysis with the hypothetical data only. Hence, using the traditional CVM analysis results to determine payments to attain a given level of adoption may result in over-